I’m in Beijing with Laurence - a friend from work in the UK.

I spent the morning in the local Novell office - great views; mainly of construction:

We were taken out to lunch by the project team from Novell - to a local tofu restuarant. Tofu served in ways I’d never seen it before. Even as a dessert.

This evening we took a taxi to Tiananmen Square - and walked around. It truly is immense. We were accosted by dozens of people selling kites, Mao watches, books of Mao Quotations - and people just wanting to talk and speak English.

We then went wandering, found a restuarant, and using a combination of pointing and my month old mandarin skills - we ordered Peking Duck, rice and beer. I even managed to ask for a receipt and get the taxi driver back to our hotel.